Jezz Fucker has the smallest tool in Hollywood

And some people thought that after the strike, there'd be no reason to watch Nikki Finke. Without her, I probably wouldn't have seen this until April 3rd. And that's not nearly long enough to build up the kind of intense rage this deserves.

Goddamn motherfucking worthless sack of goat shit. Douchebag goes to candy stores, finds the littlest kids, steals their candy and throws it into traffic.

Hopefully SAG has the stones the writers didn't, and shuts down Hollywood. Add one simple demand to the list already in place: fire Jeff Zucker or we don't deal with NBC-Uni. Besides, shouldn't turning The Peacock into a third-rate network, battling with the C-fucking-W for last place, be enough cause to can his sorry ass? The hell with SAG; GE stockholders should be demanding Zucker's head.

Or maybe Hova can have the bitch shot for his parting words.

Earl's Greg Garcia, elbow deep in the grease

Greg Garcia, creator of My Name is Earl, may have pulled double shifts during the strike. On top of his picketing duties, he spent some time in the grease traps.

He took a job at a fast-food restaurant, never letting on to his fellow employees -- or anyone else -- that he was an Emmy-winning writer/producer. As a cashier and occasional janitor, Greg spent the month of January rubbing elbows with the real world. You might wonder, why would he do it?

His answer is simple: "I've wanted to do a book about taking different jobs and what it was like to do them," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "This was the first. It may be a while before I do the second. But it's just about the fact that we live behind gates and work behind gates, and as a writer you start to lose touch with the audience. You start running out of life experience."

Harlan Ellison on the Writers Strike

My anti-agreement analysis wasn't quite as vitriolic as Unka Harlan's. Good god, this is why HE is my hero.

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin’ LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation…

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse’s asses who kept mumbling “lessgo bac’ta work” over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking dipthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won’t be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I’m just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

WGA: Take these pretty beads

Over 92% of WGA members voted to suspend the work stoppage, sending writers back to work today. There is still no signed deal with the AMPTP, but this vote is a clear sign that the membership backs the agreement in principle and will ratify it by the February 25 deadline. So what did the Guild win? What concessions were ripped from the industry after a three-month strike that hit the economy of LA county for an estimated $3.2B in direct and indirect costs?

Here's a link to some initial analysis from Jonathan Handel who practices entertainment, digital, and technology law. Read there if you're interested, but my take is that the Guild basically won three things that truly matter: new media jurisdiction, new media separated rights, and calculations based on distributor's gross. Beyond that, the flat-fee structure for streaming media is very bad for TV writers (and potentially film writers) and the 17-day window for free streaming (supported by ad dollars!!!) is devastating.

Some writers are content to say that in three years they can always renegotiate. They've shown the studios that they can be committed, organized, dedicated, and united. To those writers I'd say: see 1988. It's a generational unity that must be used to its full advantage when it arises. The very bad (for the writers) terms in this deal will be in place for at least 15 years. They might be modified slightly - oh, we'll give you $1300 for a year's worth of free streaming, and narrow the window down to 15 days - but they're pretty well set in stone until the next wave of writers says "what the fuck were they thinking?"

Obviously it's easy for me, hundreds of miles away and not dependent upon Hollywood for my income, to bash this deal. I'm just a spec monkey. It's easy for me to wait and hope that current writers get a deal that's nigh-perfect so I can, with hard work and luck, take advantage of it in the next few years. It's also easy for me to see from a distance that the Guild lost three months worth of work, allowed the studios to invoke force majeure to kill a crap-load of development deals, gave Ben Silverman an opportunity to open his trap and spew his idiocy, all for a handful of shiny beads.

"If this deal passes, it wasn't worth it," said Alfredo Barrios, co-executive producer and a writer on the TV series "Burn Notice." "If I had known three months ago, I wouldn't have voted to authorize the strike."

Right indeed, and not just because he's an EP on a fun show that gives Bruce Campbell a regular gig. This strike cost billions and garnered pocket change.

Fuck you, Monkey-Squirrel!

There's video above, FeedReader
Seth! Josh! Josh's strike beard!!! Puppets!

The perfect storm of strike videos.

Brains! Need Brains!

John August on today's march around Paramount:

Paramount is seven blocks wide and four blocks deep, but it backs up against the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, so there’s no way to circle it without including the cemetery, a few strip malls, and the WIC center. So for any confused observers (there were a few), the WGA is not anti-corpse, anti-doughnut, or anti-women-infants-and-children.

I don't know about him, but I for one am anti-corpse. Goddamn zombies-in-waiting.

Why You Don't Need An Education To Be A Screenwriter

Or: What I Didn't Learn in Film School
by Unnamed Successful Screenwriter.

Nikki Finke's rumor-porting on the Worldwide Pants/WGA side deal includes some anonymous griping from screenwriters, one of whom said "I'm going back to work." He continues to show an extreme ignorance, of the sort I'd normally only associate with glass sorters and George Bush supporters:

"I have gotten five phone calls tonight from feature writers and every single one of them has said some variation on, 'Bullshit on this. Why am I looking at staying out of work until April when these guys are going to start picking up paychecks on Tuesdays?'"

The writer continued: "All you're doing every time a movie or TV star goes on Letterman is making money for a member of the AMPTP. If you're going to strike GM, then you strike GM. You don't say, 'We're going to give a waiver to the guys making pickup trucks because they're really good guys.'" You don't maintain solidarity by letting a handful of guys go back to work. So what's next: Lorne's people go back to work? Then Colbert's people go back to work?

That's right, nimrod. "If you're going to strike GM, then you strike GM." I know it's tough to grasp, but the AMPTP is an association, nay an alliance of producers. Since the jackhole brought in the auto analogy, let's run with it.

Let's posit a mythical alliance of GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Panoz, and Tesla^* illegally colluding to negotiate with the UAW. If my boys in Georgia decide they want to get back to work sooner and break from the alliance to make their own deal with the UAW, they have every right (and every legal obligation) to do so. No one would begrudge labor returning to work with a valid, viable contract. And no one would confuse a separate corporation for a fucking pickup division. Then again, auto workers are smarter than this retard.

Go back to work. We're all dying to see your magnum opus, the latest Uwe Boll movie. Sorry. That's cruel. Uwe wouldn't hire someone this FUCKING RETARDED to write one of his movies.

A member organization in the AMPTP broke ranks and negotiated a deal with the WGA. The first of many? Maybe, maybe not. What is sure is that a separate corporate entity with independent fiduciary responsibilities negotiated a deal with labor independent of the colluding alliance of which it is a member.

---

^* Actually, I don't think Panoz or Tesla are union shops, but that reality would ruin my analogy.

Panda Fur...go ahead and fuck it

There's video above, FeedReader

There's been a lot of talk about the moguls' motivations, that they're greedy beyond greednitutedesnous, but the other point that needs to be stressed is that they are totally banoonoos. They have left the reservation. They have so much, they have forgotten the concept of human need. That's why this vid is a true vid, even if the sound is a little spotty.

via Joss hisself

The force behind the AMPTP

Besides the Big 6, who else is in the AMPTP?

Then there are the real powers behind the alliance: HSUS, DSF, and Menno-Hof. What, you’ve never heard of these puppet masters? They are, respectively, the Humane Society of the United States (“the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization”), the Disciples Seminary Foundation (“a unique, cooperative institution that collaborates with seminaries, churches, regions, and conferences on the Pacific Slope to provide exceptional theological education and resources for growth in faith”), and last but not least, the Mennonite Anabaptist Information Center (“a non-profit information center that teaches visitors about the faith and life of Amish and Mennonites, located in Shipshewana, Indiana”). That’s right, the Amish. We’re doomed. They don’t care if the strike ever ends... they don’t own TVs.

Of course, it's not like Nick Counter's spoken to the Amish. Or most of the other 350+ companies in the Alliance. I exaggerate. Nicky-boy has talked to...

Albemarle Productions, Allenford Productions, Appleton Productions, Arlington Productions, Ashland Productions, Auckland Productions, Belleville Productions, BOT Productions, Canterbury Productions, Corsica Productions, CPT Holdings, Floresta Productions, Garden Films, Glenhill Productions, GPEC, Halberd Productions, Highway 61, Hillard Productions, Hudson Productions, La Mesa Productions, Lafitte Productions, Llamame Loco Producciones, Madison Productions, McFarlane Productions, Montrose Productions, October Holdings, Quadra Productions, Rosecrans Productions, Salamander Film Productions, San Vicente Productions, SCFV Development, Seneca Productions, Topanga Productions, Trackdown Productions, Vasanta Productions, Westholme Productions, Woodridge Productions, and Wooster Productions

all of which are owned by Sony. And that's just a sampling of the "independent" producers of today's Hollywood.

We need to get insurance on the f***ing writer over here

There's video above, FeedReader

A few weeks back, Bob Kushell wrote and co-starred in one of the best strike videos. Great, funny stuff with Christina Applegate playing his wife. Here's a link.

Well, the video was so successful - bringing about an end to the strike and all - that we now get to see the making-of video. Beware: there's some really raw stuff in here. Passionate, angry stuff. I mean, "I Heart Huckabees"-level stuff if you know what I mean. Also included are some of the auditions for the role of "wife". Interesting to think of the other ways this groundbreaking work could have gone, sort of like the mythical casting of Ronald Reagan in Casablanca.

Af...

There's video above, FeedReader

The artistry of beauty of these "Speechless" videos is reaching a new high.

Apparently, his mother's vagina was...a pussy?

There's video above, FeedReader

Words...fail.

via Beckylooo

She's dumb...but I love her!

There's video above FeedReader

This could be the funniest strike video I've seen. If nothing else, the d-bags running the congloms are making the writers into bigger stars. That really might bite them on the asses when they've got to pay even more money to keep them around.

Steve Perry does sound like a soprano

There's video above, FeedReader
I am *so* angry with Edie Falco! How dare she not finish her thought! I put in 24 seconds watching this video, waiting through all the delays and "hiatuses" and this is how it ends!?!?! That's bull!

via United Hollywood

Watchmen Extras?

This sounds like great Watchmen news, except Zack Snyder would either have to scab out the work, or perpetuate the rift between screenwriters of animated fare and non-animated fare.

Let's hope an agreement can be made soon so this can all come to pass...the right way.

World without Writers

There's video above, FeedReader

via Alex Epstein

If they're going to demand the moon, this train won't even get off the tracks

Studio Reader Stan chimes in on the strike.

Is Net Neutrality bad for the WGA?

There are many things I believe in. I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve...wait, that's Crash Davis. Lemme try again.

• I believe in the equitable - not even - distribution of wealth. The old Ben & Jerry's model - where no employee earns more than five times any other - should be a requirement for all corporations. Sumner Redstone would be paying writers like goddamn rock stars if that were the case.
• I believe Stewart Brand was a genius.
• I believe Mickey Fucking Mouse should have entered the public domain about 30 years ago.

What else?

I believe in the WGA. I do so for selfish reasons: someday I'm going to get those residual checks for my scripts and I'd like them to be big and juicy. And I do so for moral reasons: labor should be well-compensated and management should do what it does best and shut the fuck up.

I also believe in Net Neutrality. Bits is bits. Doesn't matter if I'm streaming porn or writing a blog post on crappy theater. All bits are created equal. And whether those bits come from Hulu or Joe's Video Shack they should be treated the same. Without Net Neutrality, conglomerates will take control of the web in the same way they've overrun TV, film, radio, and newspapers. The cacophony and din we've all grown to love will be silenced by the dull, monotonous droning of Viacom, Time-Warner, and Disney.

Right now, as y'all know, the WGA is striking for residuals on new media, amongst other things. They're standing tall and proud and brave, and thanks to the nobility of the show runners (writers themselves) have begun the shutdown of production weeks and months earlier than the studios expected. I fully expect the WGA to win fair concessions from the D-bags at the AMPTP, though it may take months.

How is it that the WGA can be so effective?

Big Labor is most effective when it can shut down Big Capital.

With six major players, the 12,000 striking members can easily target their picket lines. This applies pressure to the producers. It also limits the outlets for the writers. It sounds cruel, but when labor has nowhere to go it stays united. The more sources of capital there are, the more likely some of them will be non-union shops. Work for writers during a strike puts food on the table, but it doesn't put residuals in the Internet.

What Net Neutrality provides is the potential for any content provider to be big. It allows for brand new startups like Herskowitz and Zwick's quarterlife to create a new outlet for original content. Sounds great, right? Except who forces the new outlets to negotiate with the WGA? Do they operate in concert with other outlets like the AMPTP, or do they all negotiate their own writers' contracts?

How much power does organized labor have against dis-organized management?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but they'll need to be asked and answered in the years ahead.

BSG Razor Webisode + Strike = ?

Um, so I don't know what to do about webisode #6. I've provided links to the previous five, but I feel too dirty to do that this week. Not too dirty to watch it, but too dirty to link to it. I can only hope Ron Moore negotiated pay for those outside the bounds of the expired contract. Then again, they're just "promotional".

Joss Whedon on the strike

Joss strike-blogs over on Whedonesque:

Two very different experiences today that I’d like to share with y’all. Last one first: Entertainment Weekly joins the New York Times in fair and balanced writer-bashing. Their cover story on the strike kind of stunned me. They’ve always been really sweet about my shows and I’ve read a lot of interesting stuff in there but holy boy are they missing the point. Their reporter has fallen into every cliched journalistic trap the congloms have ever set. I realize his magazine is owned by one of them, but I expected better. Let’s go in for a closer look.

(By the way, I’m fully aware that I have turned into Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce at the end of the movie when he’s all strung out and not funny and just reading legal briefs during his stand-up, but further down I make this really awesome joke you’re gonna wanna tell all your friends, just wait.)